44 pages • 1 hour read
Ed. John C. Gilbert, EuripidesIon
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Lines 237-509Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Lines 237-509 Summary: “First Episode”
Creusa enters the stage, weeping. Ion asks why she is weeping; Creusa responds that she was transported by a memory when looking at Apollo’s temple but dismisses Ion’s concern, assuring him that it is nothing.
Ion asks about Creusa’s lineage, claiming that he can discern her noble birth from her appearance. Creusa remarks that she is indeed an Athenian, more specifically the daughter of Erechtheus—a legendary king who is said to have slain his daughters in response to an oracle requiring this sacrifice to guarantee victory in a war against the neighboring city of Eleusis. Creusa’s life was spared because she was only an infant. She explains how she was married to Xuthus, an Aeolian distinguished in battle, as a war prize. The two are childless, which is the reason for their visit to the Delphic oracle.
Creusa asks Ion about his own lineage, remarking at how well dressed he is. He explains that he was raised in the temple, knowing only the Pythian priestess as a mother and the god Apollo as at least a notional father. Ion admits that his birth mother was likely a woman attempting to hide her adultery.
Creusa assures him that his birth mother would surely be very proud of him, and she responds that a similar circumstance befell a friend of hers. This alleged friend, according to Creusa, was raped by a god (which Ion is reluctant to believe, but which Creusa swears is true). The baby was likely taken by wild beasts, she suspects, because he was not found in the cave where she had laid him after she returned. The two remark that these stories are quite similar but do not pursue the coincidence further.
Creusa wants to ask the oracle whether her friend’s baby is alive, but Ion discourages this, considering it an insult to the god Apollo. Creusa finally asks Ion not to reveal her friend’s story to Xuthus, for fear that he might ask subsequent questions. Creusa closes her scene by lamenting the lot of women.
When Xuthus enters the stage, he insists on immediately paying his respects to Apollo. When he exits the temple, he tells Creusa that the oracle ensured they would not leave the sanctuary childless. Creusa, delighted, secretly hopes that Apollo will atone for taking advantage of her by giving her a child now.
Ion follows Creusa’s private thoughts with his own acknowledgement that Apollo did indeed wrong Creusa’s friend, and that, if the gods were held accountable for their actions, they would have no adornments on their temples.
The chorus implores Athena and Artemis, both childless goddesses, to implore the Pythian oracle on Creusa’s behalf. They also remark that a child’s love is more precious than material wealth or land. The handmaidens close their chant by noting that Apollo’s encounter with Creusa brought him a child yet her nothing but woe, as is always the case with children born to gods and mortal women.
Lines 237-509 Analysis
This episode positions Creusa as the central character in the play. Euripides gives Creusa the most emotional depth, and her lines here encourage the audience to sympathize with her especially. The dialogue between Creusa and Ion discloses that neither recognizes the coincidence that Creusa knows nothing of her child’s fate, while Ion knows nothing of his parentage. This ignorance is forgivable insofar as Ion was birthed in Athens but raised in Delphi. Nevertheless, this coincidence would have been obvious to the audience. Thus, like many Greek tragedies whose plots told well-known myths, this play features a plot whose ending would already be known to the audience. The entertainment for the audience lies in the way in which the plot is carried out (specifically, how Ion and Creusa come to recognize one another).
The theme of an exposed child was common in the ancient world. Because the exposure of infants resulted from women who sought to avoid the public scrutiny that attended births out of wedlock, this theme was often featured in myths wherein the infant survived. For example, in Homer’s Odyssey, the protagonist Odysseus was himself exposed as an infant.
In addition to giving Creusa emotional depth and establishing the theme of the exposed child, this first episode serves as a diatribe against men. Though in Greek tradition, gods must be uniformly and consistently revered, Greek gods were hardly perfect beings. The chorus of handmaidens echo Creusa’s lamentation that she was robbed of a child and that she suffered appreciable agony from having to give him up, while Apollo emerged from the tryst unscathed and without consequence.
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